"Jackpot? What do you mean?"

"Ten minutes," Oscar repeated, grinning, and disappeared.

Zephyr grumbled to himself, as there was no longer anyone around to grumble to. He finished up his schedule work, took the elevator downstairs to the workroom, and brought Reg upstairs. Oscar and Shauna were already in the conference room, and as he and Reg sat down, Marsh joined them.

"Where's Connor?" Marsh asked.

Zephyr shrugged. "Must be late. So what's this jackpot?"

"Marsh advertised," Oscar explained.

"Actually I have to credit Mariluz. She has a hidden talent as a graphic artist, I guess. I had her design a new ad to put in a few local publications, and now we've got..." Marsh paused and opened the folder in front of him for dramatic effect, "...clients."

"Three of them from just yesterday and Monday," Oscar added.

"Oh, and one more this morning, only just a one hour ago," Mariluz announced, proudly passing a form over to Marsh.

Marsh went over them individually. "Private account, single adult woman, needs renovations done to her residence."

"I'll take it," Zephyr said.

"Private account, family with small child. They don't know what they want, but it's probably going to be a lot."

"I'll take it," Zephyr said.

Marsh gave him a funny look. "Don't you want to hear all four before you start claiming them?"

"I'm sorry; please continue," Zephyr said with a little too much sincerity.

"All right. Small business establishment, a cafe or something."

"Cool," Zephyr said. "I'll take it."

Marsh shot him a cold look and closed the folder.

"Hey, what's the fourth?" Zephyr asked.

"I'm not going to read it. Oscar and I will take it ourselves," Marsh said.

"Yeah, you can't take all of them!" Oscar added. "What is up with that?"

"Reg doesn't mind. Do you, Reg?" Zephyr glanced at Reg, who said nothing. "See? No objections. It won't be an unreasonable workload."

He expected Marsh, or at least Oscar, to put up a more heated argument, but they didn't. The group moved on to a number of different issues and ended without further conflict. Mariluz left early to return to the phones, and everyone else went back to work after business wrapped up. Zephyr took his time organizing his notes. But when he stood up to leave, Marsh closed the conference room door, trapping the two of them in the room together.

"What's your problem?" Zephyr asked, letting his irritation show in his tone of voice.

Marsh sighed somberly. "I should be asking you that."

Zephyr waited for him to continue.

"You're trying to work your way out of the Holy Name project, aren't you?"

He hadn't expected Marsh to be so direct, and the accusation itself surprised him. It was an appealing prospect, but quite honestly, the idea hadn't even occurred to him. "What?! I am not. That's a load of bull. I don't know what gave you that crazy idea."

"Oh, I don't know... maybe it was your blatant attempt to tip the workload balance just now."

"Stop projecting. I was doing no such thing. Let me through."

Marsh didn't move. Instead, he assumed an even more solemn posture and lowered his voice. "Zephyr, be honest with me. Is there something going on that you need to tell me?"

"Of course not." Zephyr was really annoyed now. He also didn't have a good answer for Marsh, even if he were inclined to give one. "I just wanted to take on more work. I love my job, remember?"

Marsh regarded him skeptically, but relaxed a bit. "That's all? Okay, fine. But if you keep your team too busy, you won't be able to do the thing I was going to request."

"Oh? What's that?" Zephyr's curiosity was truly piqued.

"Well, during the last week, things have gotten a lot easier. Reg and I have been brainstorming on each other's projects. I can't begin to tell you what a help that is; Oscar's input is great, but you know how it is... the more, the merrier. So I want him to make another speech board for his own personal use."

"No." Zephyr couldn't quite say why that thought infuriated him. Well, other than the obvious, that is - he couldn't forget the shame and fear he still felt over the incident that night a week before. He had lost control, and he couldn't bear the thought of losing control, and it had all been caused by that stupid speech board.

"Why not? Zephyr, he benefits from it! Why would you want to take that away--"

"I'm not taking anything away from him," Zephyr growled, so angry by now that he was almost shaking. "Don't you dare accuse me of inhibiting him. That board was what was inhibiting him. Did you happen to notice that he hasn't hardly said a word since he started using it? And now that it's gone, he still barely talks. Reg is perfectly capable of talking and I'm not going to let him lose that skill because of some stupid toy."

"I'll have to disagree with you there. I think he's learning to speak better with the help of--"

"Marsh, back off. It's none of your business."

"Now, wait a minute. I--"

"Marsh, if you care about the fate of MARZ..." Zephyr could hardly believe he was making this threat, but here it was. "...back off. I'm serious." He had to end the conversation before he said something even stupider. He lunged at Marsh, prepared to physically force him out of the way if necessary, but Marsh moved to the side of the door and let him through. Zephyr stormed out of the conference room and into his office, and slammed the door behind him.

Why was he so upset? It couldn't possibly all be due to the speech board issue, could it? Maybe he was so upset because he was getting inordinately upset. Still more of that precious self-control was slipping through his fingers. Maybe all he needed was some time alone to gather his thoughts and figure out, in a calm, rational manner, what he should do about Marsh's request. And about the damage he'd just done to their friendship. Yes, some time in quiet contemplation was what he needed. He swiveled his chair around and scooted the short distance to the door to lock it.

But before he got there, the door opened and Connor barreled in. Okay, maybe he wasn't barreling, but he was a large object moving unexpectedly quickly into Zephyr's space, and that was disconcerting enough. His foot bumped into one of the wheels on Zephyr's chair, knocking it off to the side. Zephyr managed to not crash into the filing cabinet, and grumbled as he reoriented himself with his desk.

"Sorry," Connor panted, settling into the chair beside the desk. "Sorry I'm late, too. Lauralynn called me as I was heading out the door, and I tried to get her to let me go... I really tried."

Zephyr did not need this right now. Maybe if he acted extremely uninterested, Connor would go away and do something work-related without him. Or non-work-related. He wasn't picky.

But Connor seemed to have his own agenda. "I was going to tell her I wanted to break up with her, but... Zephyr, I need help. I can't do it by myself. Will you help me?"

A dozen ways of saying no flew through Zephyr's head. Some were facetious; some were downright cruel. The ones he liked the best were along the lines of, "Leave me alone; I have my own problems." He settled on one noncommittal option.

"I'll... try," he said. Damn, that wasn't what he was going to say. Where did that come from? Who did he think he was? Even in a good mood he wasn't capable of dealing with things like what Connor was throwing at him. Not only was he in over his head, but he was hopelessly buried. How could he claim to know anything about relationships when his own was teetering on the brink of ruin? And he was the one who brought it there!

On the other hand, maybe breakups were easier than any other aspect of relationships. After all, he'd had plenty of experience alienating people.